In the face of mounting threats to free expression in the United States and around the world, leaders of PEN America said it’s essential to unite the literary community – and expressed a commitment to listen to its Members in the year ahead.
As the world and PEN America have been roiled by conflict, trustee Dinaw Mengestu said at the 2024 Annual General Meeting that the organization is committed to working to reaffirm its values, reaching out to the literary community to “start pulling and stitching it back together.”
“It’s work that we are all committed to doing. I think it’s work that I’ve seen the staff of PEN America absolutely, utterly devoted to, and it’s work that as a trustee – and I know we all feel the same – we stand behind and are both in awe and respect of, and that we try our utmost to support.”
“Nobody is protecting artists and writers but other artists and writers,” added trustee Tom Healy. “I think that is a fundamental fact. There are people getting engaged in politics and every other way, but we have an obligation in a moment where artists and writers, their views, their books, their work, is being dismissed and destroyed, and it’s going to be a dark time. And I think what I believe is our foremost obligation is to make sure we build a community despite our differences that is about protecting writers.”
PEN America president Jennifer Finney Boylan said the new leadership of interim co-CEOs Summer Lopez and Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf presents an opportunity “to create another new draft of our organization.” She said the Board of Trustees is undertaking the process of finding a new director with care and speed “because the tide of rising fascism and information in this country means that PEN America’s work is more urgent than ever.”
In response to questions about PEN America’s support for Palestinian writers and artists amid the destruction of cultural institutions and universities in Gaza, Lopez outlined some of the work that the organization has undertaken behind the scenes in the past year. In addition to ongoing public commentary on the implications of the conflict for free expression, for writers, and for the state of free expression on campuses and in societal discourse, Lopez said some work has been done quietly to support writers under threat.
Earlier in 2024, the organization announced a significant contribution of $100,000 to the PEN Emergency Fund for Palestinian writers. Lopez said PEN America has subsequently redirected a larger amount of funding over a longer period and used additional funds to engage in direct support with Palestinians, including three writers and artists who were able to relocate with their families to South Africa to continue their work. PEN America has also been working with partners to provide more than $200,000 additional emergency funds to writers and artists still in Gaza and in exile in Egypt.
“Palestinian writers are firmly encompassed in our commitment as an organization to the freedom to write. I don’t want there to be any question about that,” Lopez said. “We are committed to the safety and well-being and free expression of all writers. That is the core of what PEN America and the PEN International network is about.”
Rosaz Sharyif added that many in the organization and community may have lost or know someone who lost family members, friends, or colleagues on Oct. 7 and in the war that followed. “We are not shying away from naming what is happening. We are mourning what is happening. But we also want to do the work, and we want to do it with all the writers.”
In response to a question about the call for PEN America to join in boycotting Israeli cultural institutions, Lopez said the organization at its core is dedicated to the power of literature to bridge differences and foster empathy and understanding, citing the 1948 PEN Charter, which calls for literature to remain common currency even in times of conflict or division.
“As a result of that, we have a longstanding policy of opposing cultural and academic boycotts. We also defend people’s rights to participate in them, and we’ve spoken out when people have been retaliated against for participating in boycotts,” she said. “But for us, that would be very contrary to exactly what PEN is built on – the belief that literary engagement, that exchange across borders, amongst writers, amongst readers and people who want to engage with culture, is a powerful means of achieving peace and understanding and change.”
The panel, which also included trustees Marie Arana and Allison Markin Powell, discussed book bans and other threats to free expression in the face of the incoming Trump Administration. Boylan referred to President Donald Trump’s vow to punish journalists and strip networks of their broadcasting licenses for coverage he dislikes, to shut down the Department of Education, and to deny funding to schools that acknowledge transgender identities.
“There’s a reason why the books most frequently banned in this country are those dealing with either queer identity or the lives of people of color, because those are the books that suggest the story of this country, too, is incomplete, that it is instead a work of progress, a story that is still being revised as we come to understand the humanity of Americans who are not straight or cis or white or able-bodied.”
Healy, speaking from Florida, told of elementary school teachers “hounded by people online and strangers who confront them and their families in the parking lot of their schools.” Lopez said the organization will help teachers, librarians, and journalists facing harassment online and off.
PEN America is also committed to defending journalists against threats from the incoming administration. “What we’re seeing already from some media outlets and other institutions is, is essentially something that experts in authoritarianism call ‘obeying in advance,’” Lopez said.
Here, too, Lopez stressed the need to unite against a common threat. “In community, in solidarity, that’s where you find the ability to fight back and to be able to uphold the fight for truth and for democracy.”
“What we are fighting for, both inside PEN as well as in the country in which we live, is a second chance, a new draft that will include the voices of people who have been silenced,” Boylan said. “What we are fighting for is a new and better story.”
The Annual General Meeting was a member-exclusive event. Not a member? Join today! For questions, please reach out to [email protected].